(05-19-2023 05:18 AM)esayem Wrote:  

(05-19-2023 01:51 AM)CrazyPaco Wrote:  Pitt's most played end of regular season opponents (vs total games played) out of 133 total seasons.

1. Penn State 66 (100)
2. Miami 10 (42)
3. WVU 9 (105)
4. Syracuse 4 (78)
4. Carnegie Tech 4 (30)

If not counting in-season rescheduling of games due to extenuating circumstances, Miami and WVU would be tied with 11 each. Duke will be tied with Syracuse and Carnegie Tech at 4 after the 2023 season.

I was surprised to see Pitt and Duquesne only played 7 times. I think Duquesne was playing at Forbes Field before they shuttered their major football program.

Duquesne was always a distant third program in the city after Pitt and Carnegie Tech in those days. Duquesne also went through multiple stretches without a team: from 1904 to 1912, 1915-1919 (WWI), and 1943-1946 (WWII). And then football was discontinued completely following the 1950 season and it didn't rejoin the NCAA for football (DIII) until 1979.

Even in the early years, it was mostly playing very small schools, and only really played bigger schools consistently in the 1930s, winning the Palms Bowl in 1933 and the Orange Bowl in 1936 and a few season finishing ranked in the AP. For instance, it considers its first major win to have occurred in 1928 over W&J and didn't begin playing at Forbes Field until 1929. The last time they played Pitt was in 1939. Really there were only about 13-15 years where could probably be considered playing major football.

After the break from football during WWII, Duquesne fielded a team again starting in 1947, but following 4 years of getting its brains beat in, it discontinued football completely after the 1950 season.

A club team started play in 1969, and Duquesne fielded an NCAA DIII starting in 1979 and then moved to the I-AA non-scholarship level in 1993 (which became FCS in 2007).

There is apparently talk between Pitt and Duquesne about playing again. That would make sense since Duquesne has been doing the FCS punching bag circuit recently, including at FSU last season and WVU this coming season. They aren't really at a level where any self-respecting FBS power team should be scheduling them but at least it is the local FCS team for Pitt (Duquesne's campus sits a mile and a half down 5th Ave from Pitt which is about halfway between Pitt and Acrisure Stadium).